


sweeter than the lyre; golder than gold

by eurydiced



Series: the lesbian kairi agenda [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Butch Xion (Kingdom Hearts), F/F, Lesbian Kairi (Kingdom Hearts), Minor Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Nonbinary Xion (Kingdom Hearts), One-sided Kairi/Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Pining, Sapphic Guilt, a little bit of sneaky character study too, in which i project aggressively onto xion for 3k words lmao, it's cute too though i promise, like. in the past specifically, soriku is mentioned in passing because i have sr brainworms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:55:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25514641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurydiced/pseuds/eurydiced
Summary: Xion was tugged along effortlessly by the script, by the desire to keep the girl’s hand in her own. Nobodies weren’t supposed towant. But in these dreams, shewantedmore than anything. Shewantedso badly, her chest hurt.But—But none of this belonged to her. Not the wanting, or the memory, or the hand.*xion grapples with the lingering shadow of sora's heart.
Relationships: Kairi/Xion (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: the lesbian kairi agenda [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1881433
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	sweeter than the lyre; golder than gold

**Author's Note:**

> the first thing i write for ao3 in ages and it's an f/f rarepair lmaooo i suffer
> 
> cw for mild descriptions of body/gender dysphoria!! disclaimer: said descriptions are based on MY personal experience as a nonbinary sapphic person, which are not universally applicable to all nonbinary wlw
> 
> EDIT: lads i'm so emotional look at [THIS FANART](https://twitter.com/rikurespecter/status/1291562204756664320) @rikurespecter ( BigDykeEnergy on AO3 ) drew after reading this fic 😭

Xion’s memories didn't belong to her. She felt it in her chest whenever she dreamt of sunlit beaches, or strange worlds, or eerie white walls: when dream-Xion raised her keyblade against a raging shadow, or stretched out like a starfish atop warm sands, everything felt out-of-sync. Like she was wearing a body tailored for someone else, too heavy, too loose at the shoulders and tight at the waist.

Not that different to how she normally felt, to be honest. But worse, much worse.

_Hey, listen. You can hear the ocean._

She pressed the seashell to Xion’s ear with more force than necessary. Xion laughed, batting it away. "I can already hear it, Kai."

_Then you can double-hear it. Just try._

And they were already ankle-deep in the tide but Xion did it anyway, closing her eyes and pressing the conch shell to her head. The bottled roar of a phantom sea in one ear, and the distinct murmur of a real one in her other. And when Xion opened her eyes again the girl was in front of her, smiling, taking her hand to go find more shells, and there was nothing more vivid than the warmth of her palm or the late afternoon light framing her cherry-bright hair.

The dreams had varied a little: a tumultuous ocean of different worlds and unfamiliar faces, confusing and jumbled and nauseating. Then after a while, the noise started to filter out, and her dreams started coming back to this. To _her_.

Xion was tugged along effortlessly by the script, by the desire to keep the girl’s hand in her own. Nobodies weren’t supposed to _want_. But in these dreams, she _wanted_ more than anything. She _wanted_ so badly, her chest hurt.

But—

But none of this belonged to her. Not the wanting, or the memory, or the hand.

* * *

Xion awoke in the white, white room, alone. Someone else’s longing echoed in the gnawing hollow of her chest.

It didn’t stop for one hundred and thirty-four days.

* * *

“Ah, crap,” Kairi said. “Sorry, Xion.”

The sun was setting. That wasn’t concerning in itself since in Twilight Town the sun spent most of its time setting, lurking low in the sky outside of a few precious hours around noon. But the sun barely skimmed the sky now, and the first scattering of stars blinked overhead. Kairi dropped into her seat across from Xion with a melodramatic _oomf_ , grinning sheepishly. "I'm still not used to dealing with trains, I guess. Didn't realise we'd get the time so wrong."

Xion shrugged. She hunched in her seat, a bad habit—if he were here, Axel (or Lea, now, though only Isa and Ventus called him that) would poke her in the small of her back and joke that she'd get stuck that way. "It's okay. I'm still not used to them either."

Kairi fished out her phone, ducking her head. Her hair was getting long again, that awkward mid-length that never sits where you put it, tumbling relentlessly into her face as she typed; her fingers, nails short and raspberry-pink, kept darting up to brush it behind her ear. Her hands were always moving, it seemed, texting or playing with jewellery or drumming rhythms against her knees. It was fascinating in a way that made Xion’s chest tight. She didn’t quite understand it.

“I texted Axel to let him know we’ll be late. These gummiphones are pretty cool, right? We only have landline on the islands. Though everyone in Twilight Town seems to use these. Pence was showing me these games he got on his phone...”

Kairi had this easy way of talking. It was one of the first things Xion ever noticed about her, in person. Not that Kairi was desperate to fill a silence—more that she spilled naturally _into_ silences, like water bleeding into a rock pool. She talked about Pence, and something called ‘Classic Kingdom’, and Olette showing her how to use selfie filters and Axel photo-bombing. She snorted, bringing a hand over her mouth.

Xion curled her shoulders inward, hands sandwiched between her knees, a half-empty cup of blueberry bubble tea on the seat next to her; it was hard not to feel like a dark spot in the otherwise-empty train car opposite Kairi’s splash of colour, with her shy silences and dark hair and dark clothes. _Heavy_ dark clothes. Axel and Roxas (with Olette in tow) took her shopping her second day in Twilight Town, leading her towards the summer section, a little too eager to treat her; she’d amassed armfuls of patterned dresses, skirts and thin, frilled shirts. Her heart skimmed her throat as she rubbed the soft materials, thinking about how wonderful they’d look on Kairi or Naminé or Aqua or Olette. Then it sank when she hit the changing room.

Nothing fit.

Or, it _fit_. But staring at her curves made her stomach buck. She wanted to sink into the overpriced coat rack and never come out.

So she tried the men’s stuff. Knee-length shorts, polos and button-ups. Better. But they never hung on her the way she’d imagine, so she piled on longer jeans and extra layers—a navy hoodie, black denim—till she was a boyish head on a genderless blob, any discernable shape swamped by clothing, and she liked that just fine. Heatstroke had always been an occupational hazard of the Organisation, anyway.

Kairi—being, well, _smarter_ —has opted for a loose white tank top and lavender shorts; she stretched, cat-like, and her chubby legs caught a patch of fading sunlight tossed through the window. They were sun-tanned, heavily freckled, and Xion had tried to count those freckles before but in her dreams they never stayed the same. She could count them now.

"Sorry for dragging you out there for so long, by the way," Kairi said.

Xion’s neck felt hot. She looked down. "It's okay, I wasn't doing anything today. I was just gonna…" She trailed off, brow furrowing. "Um. I don't know? Hang out with Axel's cat, maybe."

"Wow. High octane stuff."

"I'm not used to having this much free time, I suppose. I don't really know what to do with it."

"Well, what would you do before?" Kairi was still looking at her phone and the question was half-absent. But then she froze. A flash of guilt crossed her face, though Xion wasn’t quite sure what there was to feel guilty about. “Sorry! You don’t have to...uh, talk about that.”

 _Oh_ —now she understood, kind of. “No no, it’s fine. There’s not a lot to tell.” Through the window, behind Kairi’s head, a few gold-cast clouds still flickered near the horizon like embers. She’d been to a few different worlds now, but never seen a sky like this one. Or maybe she was just biased. All her sweetest memories (her memories, _hers_ ) were on that clock tower: side-by-side with her best friends, tasting sea salt, practising laughter before any of them understood what laughter meant. Xion felt a squeeze in her chest—that precious, volatile thing called a heart, colouring the old memories with feelings she hadn’t had yet.

“We watched the sunset, mostly,” Xion said; her eyes drifted to follow the sinking sun. The first time she’d seen that sunset with a complete heart, she...well. She’d, ah, cried. A little. “Missions kept us pretty busy. Then after me and Roxas and Axel would sit on the station tower with ice cream, and just...talk. It was nice. One time we got a day off, and it was strange? I didn’t really know what to _do_ with it. I just trained, really.”

Kairi’s eyebrows shot up, and Xion realised: she’d said something weird again. "Weren't you there for a year? Like—a whole year?"

Xion wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything. “Y...yeah?”

Kairi’s face had changed entirely, and Xion couldn’t quite read it. Nobodies’ expressions weren’t usually quite so— _complex_. Xion shifted a little in her seat; that sinking-gut feeling struck again, the uncomfortable and recurrent sensation of being out of her depth.

She was thinking back on what she’d said, trying to pinpoint _where_ she’d gone wrong exactly, when Kairi leaned forward and captured Xion’s hands in her own.

Xion’s soul briefly evacuated her body.

“Go to the Midsummer Festival with me!” Kairi blurted out. It took Xion a long moment to register what Kairi was saying, busy as she was returning back to her own head and realising abruptly that Kairi smelled like bubblegum, which for some reason seemed like the most important thing to her brain right now.

“I-I—” Xion said. She fired up a quick prayer that Kairi wouldn’t be able to feel her pulse tripping in her wrist. “I, uh, wh-what’s—”

“They throw it every year on the Islands. You’ll love it, there’s dancing and rigged fairground games—” Kairi sat back then. Xion’s wrists felt suddenly, starkly colder. “—and street food, and sometimes there’s a play. One time, Sora and Riku played a pair of old talking trees who’d gotten completely twisted around each other—it was, um, I can’t remember it exactly, but something about fairies and a magic sword.” She flashed an impish grin. “Riku was ten then, so he was, y’know. Mister _Too Cool And Grown-Up For This Shit_. We had to bully him into it. But hey, I guess it was prophetic.”

Xion floundered for something in Kairi’s infodump to make sense of, and finally latched onto: “Trees?”

“ _Gay_ trees. You’ve met them, haven’t you? That’s the best acting they can do.”

Xion choked; she coughed to clear her throat. “Why...why the Festival?” she managed, before realising it was probably the wrong thing again. People with hearts—their interactions were so much more _complicated_ and layered than she was used to. _No._ No, _she_ had a heart now, too. Maybe she’d had a heart for a long time, and this still hadn’t gotten any easier. What she wouldn’t give for a script, or a manual—Xemnas’ riddles were almost comprehensible in comparison.

Kairi didn’t seem to mind her awkwardness, though. Kairi never seemed to mind. “‘Cause stupid Xemnas was a bad boss. And I wanna bully _you_ into trying Takka’s extra-spice chili con carne.”

Xion was still thinking about Kairi’s touch on her wrist; she stared down at them. “I, uh, think he did worse things than be a bad boss.”

“One sin at a time, Xi.”

 _Xi._ A nickname. Kairi had given her a nickname. Something warm flooded her chest—but the confusion must have shown on her face, still, because something shifted in Kairi’s. The turn of her mouth turned pensive; she hesitated, and for the first time she seemed to be carefully weighing her words.

“I just...want you to have a good life. You and Naminé and Roxas. It’s _stupid_ unfair what happened, y’know? I mean, I don’t think Naminé ever even left those white rooms. And you two…” Kairi tangled and untangled her fingers together. She didn’t look Xion in the eye. “I want you to be happy, Xion, and experience things. Is that sappy?”

Yes, absolutely, it was. Xion swallowed around the sudden lump in her throat, curling over the fluttery sensation in her stomach. Emotions would be easier to handle, Xion thought, if they _stayed_ in the heart like they really ought to.

“I appreciate it. I’d love to. Really.” It came out quieter than Xion intended. Kairi’s eyes brightened, but they still looked a little upset. Xion tugged on the sleeve of her hoodie, where she was starting to wear a thumbhole, grasping for the right words; she wanted to smooth out the crease between Kairi’s eyebrows. “It wasn’t all bad in the Organisation. There were—there were good things.”

“Really?” She seemed sceptical.

“Really, I swear. I got to see _so_ many worlds. Neverland was one of my favourites, just this green, green island. I’d never seen so much ocean before." _Except—_ she almost added, but stopped herself. She hadn’t told _anyone_ about those dreams; maybe it was selfish of her, but she wasn’t about to start now. "I saw mermaids. _Real_ mermaids. And I nearly got caught in this battle these strange pirates were having with the people who lived there, and some kids in, uh, animal onesies?"

Kairi laughed at that—not like Sora’s sparkling laugh or the quiet chuckle Riku tucked behind his hand, but a full-bodied snorting giggle. As if she weren’t just being polite, and Xion were _actually_ funny. It was the most graceless laugh Xion had ever heard, and she thought her new heart would arrest at the sound of it. She wanted to draw the strings of her hoodie closed.

But she wanted to keep talking, too. She wanted Kairi to laugh like that again.

So she talked (hesitant, at first, but gaining speed as she went) about the Beast’s castle, watching Roxas swat heartless with a stick; shaking Agrabah sand out of their hoods and into the strings of Demyx’s sitar and Demyx gasping like they’d slapped his grandma; Halloween Town, with its escher trees and eerie moon, and how she was a pretty sure those zombie kids stole her munny when she wasn’t looking. She talked about the claustrophobic walls of Wonderland and negotiating with vacant soldiers, which were shaped like Luxord’s playing cards and about as smart ( _oh my god,_ Kairi said), and freeing strange mule-boy hybrids at an odd place called ‘Prankster’s Paradise’.

Kairi leaned further and further forward as she spoke, elbows braced on her knees and chin in her hands. Her silver charm bracelet caught the last of the fading light. One of the charms was small and colourful: pink and sunset shades, like a flag. It looked like it might mean something. Xion paused, wanting to ask, but then Kairi sighed and it scattered the thought like dust.

Xion frowned. “Are you okay?”

Kairi blinked, straightening abruptly. It hadn’t been a _loud_ sigh, scarcely a breath; it had only registered on Xion’s radar because she was so hyper-aware of every little movement Kairi was making. And just like that, Xion felt stupid again. She shouldn’t have said anything. But Kairi didn’t seem to notice. She just smiled, hands on her knees. This smile looked different, somehow. “I’m fine! You’re a great storyteller, Xion. You and the others should swap stories sometime, when we’re all together.”

Kairi’s hands were still a moment. Xion saw, then, that her nail polish was chipped and the nails were ragged, like they’d been bitten; almost as quickly as Xion saw it, Kairi tucked her hands between her knees. She was sitting like Xion now, the two mirroring each other across the train car. But so different. Even her face. There was a time where Xion couldn’t tell the face in Sora’s memories from her own, if not for their colours, but then something changed; like sea glass, the tides and storms had weathered Xion, cutting her jaw and frosting her cheeks with new moles and freckles. At first she’d thought it was some kind of defect ( _stupid, broken puppet_ ). But she looked now, at Kairi’s face with the sweetheart jaw, and felt—glad.

There were the— _other_ feelings, too, of course. But those feelings were different as well. It caught her breath now, how different this felt to the hazy warmth of Sora’s dreams. Like little static shocks every time she caught Kairi’s eye.

Xion swallowed. She tried not to think about it. “What, uh...what about you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah. I mean—you probably have some really cool stories. I’d love to hear them.”

“Oh, uh.” Kairi paused. “I, uh, no. I don’t—have a lot, really.”

“Oh.”

Xion squirmed. Her fingers dug into her knees through the heavy denim. She didn’t like this silence; she prayed Kairi might break it.

“You know,” Kairi finally said, slowly. She brushed her hair back. “You know, Sora’s been to Neverland too. He says he learned how to fly there.”

Xion remembered. “Yeah. Roxas says he and Axel flew, too.” She scratched her cheek. “I, um, feel like I got cheated a little.”

Xion hoped Kairi might laugh at that again. She didn’t. She twisted the stud in her ear instead, staring at the window past Xion’s shoulder. “He told us that he had to think happy thoughts to do it, so—he thought about me and Riku, that we were his happy thoughts. He says we were there with him the whole time, and—and I believe him.” Her gaze skipped downward for a moment. That smile never slipped. “Riku and Sora have explored so many places. They’ve seen so much together. I’m... _happy_ for them, but...”

The tracks rattled beneath them. The sun had lapsed into the hills.

Barely audible, Kairi said, “Sometimes I wonder how well we know each other anymore.”

Xion's mouth was suddenly dry. Kairi was stiller now, avoiding Xion’s eye, and it was like she’d pulled all the colour away; Xion, quiet shadow, didn’t know how to fill the silence after her.

 _This_ Kairi—pensive and muted with the porcelain smile—she’d never seen her in any of Sora’s dreams. But Xion’s pulse thrummed like a hummingbird at the sight of her.

Xion hesitated, hands clutching the edge of the seat. What should she do? Earlier, she’d told Kairi stories, and that seemed to work—but she was running out of stories now, and besides, that would probably make things worse. What would Sora do? Maybe hug her, but even the thought made Xion’s hands clammy. And besides—she wasn’t Sora. She had to do _something_ , though.

A quick, rattling breath, and then Xion stood. She crossed the train car and dropped into the seat beside Kairi, and before she could think too hard she offered Kairi a headphone. Her heart fluttered to her throat. When Kairi blinked at her, guise finally slipping, Xion thought for a second that her lungs might give out.

But Kairi smiled again, a new kind of smile, one Xion had only ever caught in brief flashes before. “Thanks, Xion.” She took the ear bud—Xion’s fingers tingled where Kairi brushed them—and dropped her head to Xion’s shoulder, and then Xion’s lungs _definitely_ gave out. “What do you listen to?”

Xion didn’t think she had the breath to speak, so she fumbled for her gummiphone, put in the other earbud and hit play instead. It was a band Axel told her to listen to, _real music, y’know, classic punk shit_ , he said, though Xion had no idea what made it any realer than the kinds of music Olette or Pence liked to listen to. They lapsed into warm silence. Xion found it very, very hard to focus on the musician’s voltaic guitar.

“This is cool,” Kairi said. She squeezed Xion’s arm. She felt colourful again, but in a quieter way: pastel shades against Xion’s muted blues. “Today was a lot of fun. You’re really cool to hang out with, Xion.”

Kairi’s knee was pressed up to hers. Kairi thought she was cool, and fun. Kairi wanted to take her to the festival.

None of Sora’s memories had prepared her for this.

“You too,” Xion said, voice cracking a little. This all felt so fragile, like the two of them were suspended in air; like the warmth would burst if she breathed a little too hard.

It burst when the train pulled in at Central Station ten minutes later, leaving Xion a little cold. But Kairi swung her hand on the way back to Axel’s place and talked about festival food and keyblade training and Axel’s crazy-spot-on King Mickey impression, as bouncy as if their train conversation had never happened. Xion couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d just witnessed something private and rare, like a secret—that Kairi had entrusted her with it. It made her insides feel floaty and light.

Xion squeezed Kairi’s hand, lightly, barely noticeable. A silent promise to tuck the secret into her chest and keep it.

* * *

_Hey, listen,_ Kairi said. _You can hear the ocean._

It was sunset, and Kairi was pressing a seashell to her ear, and the dream-air tasted like ice cream.

But there were no sands; no balmy trees dripping with stars. It was Kairi with the awkward-length hair and chipped nail polish and the bittersweet (but mostly bitter) sigh, resting her head on Xion's shoulder as trains drifted past sunset hill; she twined her fingers with Xion's, and they were _Xion's_. It was a body she felt at home in. She felt— _vivid_.

Something sat in her other hand. Xion held her closed fist up to the light.

 _C'mon, Xion. Let it go._ Kairi propped a chin on her shoulder. _Watch the trains with me._

The dream was warm, and it was hers. _Xion's_. No one else's.

Xion opened her hand and let it fall over the railing, taking the heavy pit in her stomach with it. She pressed her cheek to Kairi’s crown, breathing in bubblegum. She closed her eyes and squeezed Kairi’s fingers.

There was no shame in dreaming for a while.

**Author's Note:**

> this started out as a reflection on "huh so if sora had a crush on kairi and xion had sora's memories did she inherit his crush on kairi" and then it got away from me and now i've accidentally gotten myself to ship kaixi LMAO WHOOPS
> 
> (if you liked this and have a little spare, consider maybe buying me a coffee! links are on my twitter @ rikuapologist! it's absolutely not required though)
> 
> title insp: sappho :)


End file.
